I noticed that yellow oxalis (oxalis pes-caprae) flowers were popping up around the place, along with all the other weeds that are taking advantage of the slightly warmer weather and thought I had read that you could dye with them. Of course when I tried to find some information I could only find a few mentions online with not a lot of detail so I decided to just go ahead and play. I picked a bunch of flowers while out walking my dog, put them in a jar and poured hot water from the tap on them. At first the colour of the solution was a very bright yellow but it changed over time to a red colour.
The jar sat on the kitchen bench for 8 days and mould had started to grow on top so I strained the solution and poured it into a dye pot. I added some more water and then 100g of merino yarn. I didn’t find any information about whether to mordant or not so I decided to just go ahead and not bother, thinking that the worst case is that the yarn wouldn’t take up any colour. In the dye pot the colour of the yarn appeared as a light, bright yellow that I quite liked. I simmered the yarn for a while, then removed it and hung the yarn up outside to dry a little while I did some other jobs. Later in the day I washed the yarn in warm water with a little detergent. Not much colour rinsed off during washing but the yarn colour deepened/darkened which was a surprise.
March is the start of feijoa season, and also time for Easter eggs.
On my table loom I have been weaving a colour with double weave sampler from an article in an old Weavers’ magazine. On my floor loom I have been weaving some pieces using upholstery weave from The Weaving Book by Helene Bress. The piece under the Easter egg basket above, and in the middle photo below used 3 weft colours, and the piece on the right used 4 weft colours.
Rufus enjoyed a trip to Te Toro beach, with many things to sniff, though he was rather disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to fully investigate the dead gull he found.
And today, I finally got around to cutting the kōrari (flower stalks) from the harakeke (NZ flax) plants in the garden and harvested the seedpods for a dyebath. The first photo below show the flowers and seedpods last month, the birds love feasting on the flowers. Once the flowers have died off the seedpods fully develop and usually I harvest them when they are still fresh but I left it later this year so most of the seedpods have dried off and split open to distribute their seed.
Some yellow yarn and flowers to brighten up another rainy day. The flowers were a gift from a friend to celebrate that I have been awarded the Creative Fibre Mason Charitable Trust scholarship for 2023. The objective of the scholarship is to give a member of Creative Fibre NZ the ability to extend their knowledge and push the boundaries of their capabilities and their design skills by studying overseas with a recognised international practitioner. So in June 2024 I am off to France for a workshop with Stacey Harvey-Brown at The Loom Room France. It’s very exciting and I’m honoured to receive the scholarship.
The yellow corridale wool yarn was solar-dyed with Dyer’s Chamomile flowers. I was not expecting such a bright yellow but it is very cheery. I picked and dried the flowers months ago, and then kept moving the container with them in it around the place until I decided that I really should use them. I used alum as a mordant and left the yarn in the dye for about a week. There weren’t many sunny days in that time but obviously there was enough sunshine to do the trick.
Weaving some tea towels on my Mecchia dobby loom, using up odd spools of cottolin. The draft is A Basket of Stripes Towels by Megan M. MacBride in Handwoven May/June 2022.
Sewed up a skirt using fabric I wove way back in 2020. The skirt pattern is one I have made up a couple of times already, but this is the first time using handwoven fabric. It’s the Clair skirt, a zero waste pattern by Liz Haywood, mine isn’t quite zero waste as my fabric was narrower than the recommended fabric and I also managed to measure one piece incorrectly and had to do some piecing. Very happy with how it turned out though.
Continuing to weave the Deflected Double Cloth sample blanket from Exploring Woven Fabrics by Janet Phillips. I’m nearly halfway through and I’ve found that my understanding of this structure has definitely increased after working through the different lift-plans. Really looking forward to finishing this warp so I can plan some projects based on it.
It’s been a busy month or two as I’ve been involved with the organisation of a local art show and I haven’t done much weaving. My main project in February was weaving a couple of pieces using some of the corriedale yarn I had dyed with harakeke seedpods. I drafted a echo weave design, inspired by the curves of the harakeke (NZ flax) flower stalks and seedpods, which I think turned out quite well for my first attempt.
I wove a scarf (above) and a wallhanging (below)
On my table loom at the moment is the Deflected Double Cloth sample blanket from Exploring Woven Fabrics by Janet Phillips, which I hope to complete in the next couple of weeks.
Last but not least, here are a few pictures of Rufus, who is helping us to improve our throwing skills as he demands to play fetch several times a day.
The harakeke (flax | phormium tenax) plants in my garden started sending up flower stalks in December. They look impressive and the birds love the flowers but they do have a tendency to fall over and then my husband moans when he has to mow around them because I won’t let him cut them down as I want the seedpods to grow so I can dye with them. He was quite pleased when a few weeks ago I collected up all the stalks and harvested the seedpods. I have been experimenting with dyeing with harakeke seedpods for a few years after reading a post by Isla Fabu and racing out to collect some some from my garden to try it straight away.
Dyeing with harakeke seedpods is fun and fairly fuss-free, and there is always the anticipation to see what colours you will get. I don’t try to get reproducible/repeatable results with this dye so I don’t weigh the quantity of seedpods or stick to strict timings or temperatures.
The basic method I use is:
Pick the seedpods. You can use fresh or dried, I have used both in the past. My latest dye batch was using fresh seedpods. Cut the seedpods into 2 or 3 pieces and put them in a pot. Cover them with water and leave them for a couple or so days until the liquid starts to bubble and smell. How long I actually leave the seedpods fermenting depends on when I can get around to heating the dye pot up but I imagine it could get very smelly if you left it too long. I used rainwater in this dye batch because I was working next to the garden water tank but normal drinking water is fine.
Heat the dyepot up until it is simmering, then turn off the heat and leave it overnight or until it is cool. Strain the seedpods and seeds out of the dye. Then it’s time to start dyeing.
Soak the yarn you want to dye with a little detergent for about 30 minutes. You don’t need a mordant. Wring the yarn so it is just damp and add to the dyepot.
Heat the dyepot gently to the boil and then simmer. You can vary how long to simmer for by checking the colour of the yarn and turning off the heat once you’re happy with the colour. I wouldn’t go past an hour and I often turn the heat off after about 15 minutes. If the yarn hasn’t gone a strong colour after simmering for an hour then in my experience it’s probably not going to happen.
Leave the yarn in the dyepot to cool, then remove. I rinse the yarn in warm water and then wash with some laundry detergent and rinse. I use ecostore laundry liquid or similar, depends what’s on special at the supermarket. Wring out the water and then dry out of direct sunlight.
Below are some photos of the dyepot after heating and separating the dye solution from the seeds and seedpods.
Keep using the dyepot for a few days and see what colours you get. My experience is that you can get dark browns at the beginning and then some red-browns and then pale browns. Eventually the dyepot gets quite smelly and it doesn’t give much colour. I have got best colour results with wool rather than other fibres.
The photo is below is from the first dyeing session using my latest bath of dye. These yarns were all put in the dyepot at the same time and treated the same. You can see the difference you get from different fibres with this dye. From bottom to top the yarns are: rayon, tencel, acrylic knop yarn, “coconut cotton”(not sure what this actually is) and corriedale wool.
After dyeing this first batch of yarns, I carried on dyeing more skeins of corriedale yarn, one after another instead of altogether. The colours of these skeins demonstrate how the dyebath colours change with repeated use. The skeins are left to right, the last to the first dyeing session.
Rufus is 1
In other important news, it is Rufus’ first birthday today. Here he is with his birthday cake which is just his normal food and peanut butter. It only lasted a few seconds, once the candle was taken out.
At the beginning of the month I completed two pieces for an exhibition at our local community gallery. The theme of the exhibition is Connections and these two pieces were inspired by a metaphor used in Nordic countries where the red thread can refer to a shared characteristic or core theme that runs through and connects themes, ideas and stories.
“Connections” consists of works by six local Franklin artists including me, we have got to know each other through our shared passion for fibre and textile art. We were offered the exhibition slot at fairly short notice after a cancellation so we had not seen each other’s work until installation day and it was exciting to see how well the pieces all worked together.
The exhibition is on at the Franklin Arts Centre, Community Gallery until 3 October, so if you’re in Pukekohe pop in for a visit.
I have also been working on my entry in our Waiuku Spinners & Weavers group challenge which is due this week. Each member was given a bag containing some corriedale, alpaca and angora fibre and one of 4 themes (fire, water, air and earth) with the challenge to make something inspired by the theme using the fibres and whatever else you wanted to add. My theme was water, I spun the fibres, dyed them and have been weaving a piece on a frame loom.
Dog Tales
Rufus is not allowed near my weaving very often as he has a tendency to chew on things he shouldn’t (as all puppies do) but I had my table loom set up in the dining room this month and he decided to try out the weaving bench for size.
August is racing away, I don’t know how we are already over halfway through the month. The weather has been wet and cold so it’s been good to be inside weaving. First up are some photos of the double weave scarves that I mentioned in my last post.
Each scarf has a wintery phrase woven in morse code, from left to right they are: “It’s Cold Outside”, “Wrap Up Warm” and “Looks Like Rain”. The right hand side of the photo shows the full front and back of “Looks Like Rain”. They were on display at “Gathering”, a collection of works by members of the Franklin Arts Festival committee. It was held at the Franklin Arts Centre, Community Gallery from 3-22 August.
The tea towels are finally off my Mecchia loom and are now waiting for me to hem them.
Last week I put a cotton warp on my Ashford jack loom and wove some woven shibori pieces using the techniques from Catharine Ellis’ book “Woven Shibori”. I wove four pieces with a cotton warp and two with a polyester weft. On Saturday my local weaving group had an indigo dyeing workshop and I dyed all the cotton weft pieces and one of the polyester weft pieces. I dyed both polyester weft pieces with Rit Dyemore dye as well and steamed them to set the pleats.
Woven shibori pieces on the loom
Cotton warp and polyester weft, the piece on the left was first dyed with indigo before both were dyed with Rit Dyemore dye.
Cotton warp and weft
Dog Tales
Rufus is now 6 months old and continues to keep us on our toes as everyday he finds something new that he can reach. He loves playing with his balls and running around.
July has been and gone so I thought I’d better post here before too much of August has passed and I had forgotten what I’ve been up to. Thank goodness the photos on my phone have dates on them 🙂
I finished weaving the Monk’s Belt placemats from Season 6 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. They’re waiting to be hemmed, which might get done before the end of August.
Once my jack loom was free of the placemats I got to work weaving some samples for a trio of double-weave scarves I planned to make for a small group exhibition coming up in August. I used some 2 ply corriedale wool I had dyed previously that was in similar colours to what I planned for the final scarves, wove a small sample to check the sett was OK and then wove off the rest of the warp. I used double-weave so that I could weave phrases using Morse code into the scarves.
Once I had finished the samples I moved on to dyeing some more wool and warping up the loom for the final project. I cut the scarves off the loom on the last day of July, which was a relief as the exhibition they were for opened on the third of August. I’ll post some photos of the finished scarves in my next post.
Kate Alberta Weaving 